


we're different and the same (gave you another name)

by wholewheatbreddy



Category: Video Blogging RPF, twoset violin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Among Us (Video Game) Setting, Angst, Cigarettes, Grief/Mourning, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Poetry, Tags May Change, Vibrators, only one poem for now though (i think), sorry i cannot tag lmao, these were all written at different times so the style changes wildly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:00:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28950039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wholewheatbreddy/pseuds/wholewheatbreddy
Summary: Fic prompt fills done for Twitter @/wheatbreddy. Heed the tags, please—warnings will also be added in chapter descriptions. Say hi on Twitter if you're interested in the possibility of more ficlet shenanigans, or if you just wanna watch me scream.Title from Rather Be — Clean Bandit.
Relationships: Eddy Chen & Brett Yang, Eddy Chen/Brett Yang
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	1. hard on myself (put my heart on a shelf)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [this](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EjjeCEdU4AMnAEK?format=jpg&name=large) image.

He's talking, and then Brett's talking, and then Eddy's leaning back and to the right, drawn closer and closer of his own accord. And then it's just the two of them—no camera, no video, no one to call Eddy out on his predisposition for yearning.

Brett wets his lips, turns, glances from the corner of his eye. Says something that passes through one ear and out the other, because Eddy could be hung up on every word but he _isn't_ , because every moment with Brett is something ephemeral and precious and he wants to look and touch and tuck him away, close to his heart.

He's smiling so hard his face hurts.

Brett turns and he _looks_ and Eddy looks back, something passing between the two of them, the words pressing insistently against his throat finally escaping through his gaze, his grin.

He sees Brett's mouth twitch. Hiding. Waiting for the video to be done and over with, waiting for the room to fall silent, waiting for Eddy to bridge the gap between them and tell him all the things he's wanted to say.

And Eddy thinks, _oh_.

The world stops, spins, reverses—

—and the moment's over.

Eddy kicks Brett under the table, and Brett kicks him back, and then there are cold fingers reaching blindly for his, intertwining, squeezing them like a lifeline.

 _Oh_ , Eddy thinks, again, somehow dumbfounded, even in the limitless expanse of his own mind.

Brett twists a little, leans closer, swings their clasped hands under the table. Glances at Eddy like he's asking for permission.

"Editor-san will take care of it," Eddy says.

(He looks _hungry_ , like he's been waiting an eternity to say that line, to look at Brett like he's something worth devouring. Brett thinks, _what a dumbass_ , leans in, kisses him sweetly, carefully.

"You couldn't even try to be a little more subtle?" Brett says, breathes it into his mouth, even though there's no bite to it, even though he's swaying closer, a celestial body outdone by the gravitational pull of another.

Eddy laughs, and kisses him again.)


	2. sydney

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by this fantastic [artwork](https://funk-z.lofter.com/post/1d5a50cf_12e8d73f0), and the poem in its caption, which was adapted from Charles Bukowski's [Chicago](https://bybukowski.tumblr.com/post/23279879909/chicago).

“I’ve made it,” he said, “I’ve come

through.” he had on new sneakers, pants

and a white t-shirt. “I know what I 

want now.” he’d returned from Sydney

and had settled by the Opera House there.

“you promised me champagne,”

he said.

“I was drunk when I phoned. how about

a beer?”

“no, pass me your joint.”

he inhaled, let it out :

“this isn’t very good stuff.”

he handed it back.

“congratulations,” I said, and opened

a can of beer for him anyway. “that was a great 

concert.”

“I shook her hand...did you see us shake hands?”

“yes.”

“I’ll visit you often.” 

he drank the rest of the beer.

his mouth shone.

“I gotta go, man.”

he kissed me in the doorway

I could taste the hops 

in my mouth.

"goodbye,” he said.

“goodbye,” I said.

he went up the walk toward his car.

I closed the door.

he knew what he wanted 

and it wasn’t

me.


	3. it's a shot in the dark (but i'll make it)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW/CW: referenced character death, grief, and light implication of future suicide at the end.

“You’re not real, are you?”

“No shit.” 

“But you’re here. That makes you real enough for me.”

-

“...What did it feel like?”

“What do you think it felt like? What do you believe in?”

“I think—”

“If everything that you are—that _I_ am—can be boiled down to a wrinkly lump of flesh, what do you think happens? You’re gone. Everything you were and everything you are and everything that you might ever be is _gone_. You could think of it like going to sleep, but forever.”

“...”

“It wasn’t all that bad, I think. It didn’t hurt. We’ve both missed out on enough sleep to last a lifetime. And it happens to everything. It’s all part of a big cycle, you know. The wheel keeps turning. You get swept along by the tide, pushed out to sea, smoothed out and returned anew.”

“You weren’t half that wordy when you were alive.”

“I’m just a projection of him. These are your thoughts parroted back: in his voice, with his face. Would it make you feel better if I didn’t say anything at all?”

“No.”

“I thought so.”

“I just...I don’t know. I’d like to think that there’s something that comes after. I can’t accept the idea that something so infinitely complex and capable could be erased through some kind of physical means. Memories and ideas and dreams wiped out with a single impact. Parts of you that nobody else got to see—the vulnerable, unguarded you, wiped off the face of the planet. Some kind of beautiful, terrible intelligence, capable of hope and beauty and destruction, capable of love and art and music, you and me and the crowd— _fuck_. God, I miss you. The real you, you know.”

“I’d take offense to that.”

“Maybe. No, you wouldn’t. You’d act like you were pissed, but you always let me get away with the dumbest shit.”

“Colour me surprised.”

“I’d like to think that I knew him better than that.”

“Fuck off.”

“Closer. Better.”

“This isn’t—I’m not a permanent fix. You know that, right?”

“I do. I know.”

“So what will you do next?”

“I’ll keep moving forward. I don’t know when I’ll see you again, or if our paths will ever cross—in a future life, maybe, or in death, or maybe in the nebulous, far future. But when we do, it’ll be by my hand.

“One way or another, we’ll meet again; under the stars, under the bright lights of the stage, somewhere between Sarasate and Sibelius, Bach and Tchaikovsky. Somewhere that feels like home.”


	4. mid-sweet talk (newspaper word cut-outs)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [this](https://twitter.com/twosetbabies/status/1312393334061629443).

"They got you good, huh?"

Brett spits out a curse, bites his cheek, feels copper bloom bright and sharp on his tongue. "Fuck off. Getting knifed was embarrassing enough."

"Hey, I'm just a medic," Eddy grins, sets to wrapping Brett's newly-disinfected wound with a vindictive sort of glee. Pulls it tight, smirks when Brett hisses through his teeth. "It's your knife wound, not mine. You need to watch yourself, dumbass."

"We should get a new medic," Brett mutters. He lifts his head, yells it down the hall. "I don't like this one. He's too chatty."

"Yeah, okay, whatever," someone (Hyung, that bastard) shouts back. "Get over your hate boner soon, alright?" 

Brett flushes, face warming, ears pinking. "Hate boner?"

"Sit down, old man," Eddy laughs. "You're going to be stuck here for a while. No work for at least three weeks."

"Fuck. Alright."

Their "clinic" is really just a makeshift ("Slipshod," Eddy says, "This place fucking sucks.") sick bay. There's enough room for a bathroom, a bed, and maybe some other miscellaneous medical things Brett can't name, but Eddy does a good enough job that none of them have died yet.

"So that's it?" Brett says, flops uselessly into the mattress. "I'm stuck here to rot, while everyone else looks for the murderous alien parasite onboard?"

"Sounds about right."

Brett stares him down. Eddy smiles, picture-perfect, almost-genuine. Poster boy.

"C'mere," Brett mumbles, rolls over on his good side, pats the empty spot beside him. Closes his eyes, does his best to relax through the ache in his side. "Share the pain, would you?"

"I bet you have cooties," Eddy says, but Brett feels the mattress dip beside him, a warm weight settling closer, a body pressing against his side. "Better?"

"What happened to the cooties? And the professionalism?" 

Eddy slings a leg over his hip. "I lied. I have cooties too."

"Sure you do," Brett snorts, and Eddy thwacks him on the head, wraps his arms around him, holds him until his breaths slow and his body goes lax with sleep.


	5. but the mirror shows a different face (and i've grown to look the other way)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [this](https://twitter.com/ungung40urs1/status/1312767220846481408).

Eddy knows Brett will be the one to crack first.

Brett lets the hurt pile up until it bubbles at the surface, seeps through his voice, his expressions. Then he starts shaking. Shivering and trembling until violin becomes impossible and he has nothing to turn to except Eddy. 

He'll come to him with glassy eyes and something twisting at the corner of his mouth, at the stiffness of his spine. He'll let out a breath and ask, bluntly, the way he usually does, why. 

And Eddy will look at him, at the way his hands shake and his lips tighten, and turn away with an apology and a promise to speak later.

(Eddy always keeps his promises.)

But Brett doesn't do any of that. Doesn't move, doesn't shake, doesn't look Eddy in the eye and demand an empty promise and bubble tea for later.

So Eddy speaks first.


	6. and so the nighttime hits my window

"Where're you—?"

  


"Out," Brett says, jerks his head at the door. "You guys keep eating without me. I'm just getting some air."

  


He doesn't wait for a reply, and doesn't get one. Then his hands are digging in his pockets for his lighter and a pack, and the cool air feels like Sibelius (but only the way Eddy plays it) on his face, and really, Brett's had too much to drink.

  


Lighting the cig is a matter of going through the motions. He thinks about Eddy, who's probably used a lighter maybe three times in his whole life, and he thinks about Eddy, again, but warm and pliant under his hands, and responsive against his throat. He thinks about the way he'd coughed and his throat had burned the first time, because he'd tried too hard to look cool and ended up fucking himself over because of it. 

  


Brett thinks about a boy practicing in front of the mirror, trying to look suave or some stupid shit like that, trying to impress no one and everyone and maybe Eddy, too. Because that was all that really mattered. 

  


He inhales. His head spins, his lungs expand with something warm and a little terrible. He's been out long enough that the chatter inside has died down to a murmur. He feels a little sick.

  


The door opens with a creak—the kind of sound characteristic to these restaurants where time and space are a little altered—and Brett knows it's Eddy before he turns to look.

  


"Aren't you cozy," Eddy says, in lieu of greeting. There's a massive pink blob where his face should be. "I brought you cotton candy. At least, I think it's called that in America."

  


"They call it that in Canada too," Brett snorts, and takes it without further complaint. He rips a piece off and sticks it in his mouth, lets it dissolve before he speaks. "What're you out here for, besides that?"

  


"Same as you. Fresh air."

  


He looks like he wants to say more, but Brett doesn't press him further. 

  


Eddy is quiet long enough that Brett can finish his fairy floss and moves onto his next cigarette well before he finally speaks.

  


"What's it like?" Eddy asks, quietly. "Smoking, I mean. There must be some upside to it, some reason for you to keep returning to it, hey?"

  


Brett thinks about the boy he was, and the man he is now, and everything that happened in between. Thinks about how he'd rehearsed the motions, over and over, plucked lollipops from his mouth with two fingers and kneeled, trembling, on the bathroom floor, ash in his mouth and paper warm between his fingers.

  


"It's alright," he says, instead. "Kinda weird, at first, but you get used to it. Your neck tingles a little. And then I guess you're just addicted."

  


"Yeah, I get that part." Eddy bites his lip. "But besides the nicotine. What else does it do for you?"

  


Brett turns, and really— _ really _ —looks at him. Eddy's cheeks are a little pink, lit half-golden by the lights in the buffet, mouth shiny and sticky from the fruit and fairy-floss he must've had earlier. Lifts the cig to his mouth, watches the way Eddy's eyes track the motion like a cat, takes a long drag, careful and deliberate. 

  


Then he pulls Eddy forward and kisses him, prodding his lips open gently with his tongue, breathes the smoke out into his mouth. Eddy melts against him, then freezes, ducking away, spluttering and coughing until Brett smacks him on the back, hard enough to dislodge a mint.

  


"Dude, that sucked," Eddy wheezes. "What were you trying to do?"

  


"I have no idea," Brett admits. "But that was my reaction, ten years ago. So at least you know what that feels like. Felt like."

  


"Sure," Eddy says, and ruffles his hair, heedless to the way Brett flushes, heart pounding out of his chest, something like longing dripping cold down his lungs, wrapping itself around his ribcage. "I'm cold. I'm gonna head back inside. You coming?"

  


(For a moment, Brett thinks about saying no. For what, though? So he can mope outside with nothing but the moon and his lighter and a pack for another thirty minutes? So he can watch

Eddy socialize from a distance instead of up close? So he can think about fairy floss and sticky lips and hands clinging to his hoodie like a lifeline?)

  


"Yeah," Brett says. He stubs his cigarette out and steps closer, closer to the half-gold and the warmth and the fire, closer to this impossible sun in human form. "I'm coming. I think I'm starting to feel cold too."

  


Eddy smiles, takes his hand. Swings the door wide, and waits. Waiting, still, somehow, even after all these years.

  


(Brett takes two steps forward and kisses him for real.)


End file.
